


Promotion

by ghostofgatsby



Category: Chess (Board Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Blood, Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Guns, Injury, M/M, Multi, Swords, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:18:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofgatsby/pseuds/ghostofgatsby
Summary: War is never-ending, for those involved in it.Through the ages, there are constants, and constant battles.The lives of two soldiers are connected more than they know.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reishiin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/gifts).



> cw: death, major character death, injury, war, blood, guns, swords  
> if I need to tag something, let me know
> 
> Something different, written for Reishiin for Yuletide. Hope you like it!

They had lied and said they were older than they looked, and the army had taken them in all the same. All men were boys, any way you looked at it.

Now, the pawns were strewn haphazardly across the battlefield. The white vestments and uniforms were stained with crimson.

They were just boys.

Pawn 2 pressed on the wound in Pawn 1’s chest, but it was futile as his friend's eyes were shrouded white. Death was all around him- death, and the sounds of dying and battle.

Pawn 2 went to stand up amid guns and cannon blasts. He cried out in pain when gunshot split through the flesh of his shoulder. His vision whited with smoke, and he crumpled back to the ground.

 

She had grown up in war-time. War between White and Black, and no piece was spared. Her family was a part of the rooks- the men and women who manned the catapults and crossbows from the top of the castle walls.

During the day, she fired bolt after bolt, taking down opponent pawns and knights before they could breach the walls and reach the king. Her eyes scanned the battlefield. The snow-covered wastes were strewn with bodies- their men and others- and splatters of red.

At night, she dreamt of battles from the wars past. She couldn’t help but feel like she was looking for someone, when she fought, searching for someone that strange memories in the dead of night had showed her.

When she finally figured it out, it was when the castle walls were breached for the first time. War became up close instead of far out in the fields, and she could feel her hands shaking on her crossbow with every bolt she fired into their opponents.

This close, she could see their eyes. She could see the fear and the anger. She could see the very moment they died.

Rook peeked over the side of the walls to see what was coming, and that was when she found what she had been searching for, unknowingly, all this time.

The formidable, powerful eyes of the black knight, looking up at her.

The eyes of her best friend _when they were pawns_ , though she didn’t know how she knew. Rook didn’t know why those eyes were familiar, only that they _were_ , only that she impossibly knew them before. Only that she’d seen those eyes before in another war.

By the time recognition flashed across the knight’s eyes and she realized Rook was there, it was too late. Another wave of opponents stormed the walls, and she had to turn away to defend herself.

 

The war didn’t let up. It raged on, through decades, and both sides fought valiantly.

The Black Knight sat beside the fire in the gathering hall, battle weary and bruised, carefully inspecting his armaments. His sword and shield were smeared with blood. There were dents in his armored chest plate that would need fixing- if a blacksmith was still available before he would have to return to the front lines. They didn’t know when the next battle would be. Slept came uneasily each night.

And he was haunted by dreams. Glimpses of things he felt were forgotten memories. Memories of long ago, of lives he lead. Memories of training as a pawn and a rook- things he had never done.

The Knight cleans the blood off his sword with a spare cloth, and looks around the gathering hall. His fellow troops of Black are scarce at this time in the evening. Supper was long passed. Only the Queen sat in her throne, listening to the reports from the Rooks with a tired expression. The King had already gone to bed.

Across the room, the Queen’s eyes meet his, and she smiles.

He’d give his life for hers, again and again. It feels almost destiny, that he would die to protect her. There’s no other place he’d rather be than fighting in her army- except, perhaps, in her bed. The stolen moments between them were few and far between, but the King had always been cold and uncaring when it came to matters of companionship.

The Black Knight looked back down to his sword and shield, thinking of when he pledged his loyalty and how the Queen owned his heart and sword the same.

 

The White Queen had to give her credit- the Black pawn had somehow successfully snuck into the palace, without alerting any guards, and gotten as far as the throne room.

The Queen waited for her, not the King, but it was the Queen that was more surprised. She exclaimed in surprise, and the sound was loud in the empty room.

She knew those eyes.

_She knew those eyes._

She could see the fear flash across their expression as they snatched a poker from the nearby fireplace. But then there was recognition.

“How…?” the pawn whispered. Her hands shook around the poker. She threw it to the ground.

The Queen knew she had seen those eyes before- had searched for those eyes for a long time, and for so long.

“How?” the pawn asked again. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know,” the Queen replied. She extended a hand, slowly, wondering if things would really be alright.

And then the guards burst into the room.

The Queen screamed, “No! Don’t!” but they were too quick. They wouldn’t let a spy slip between their ranks so easily.

 

At long, long last.

The war was over.

Two kings meet on a battlefield, White and Black, with their armies behind them.

The white king’s eyes are pained with grief. They have seen so much death over the past several decades. It never gets easier.

But today, it ends.

The black king is tired, but his eyes are filled with hope more so than sadness.

The kings face one another, swords sheathed, shields left behind. They never fought themselves- they never were capable fighter like their queens had been.

They shake each other’s hands, and then the white king smiles.

There was a moment in which everything was still, and both armies held their breaths.

The black king smiled back, and the two men embraced tightly. The war, at long last, was over with.


End file.
